When fighting ranged DPS classes, you don’t have to conserve mana as there will be times when you are out of melee range and therefore regenerating mana
Based on my experience so far in Holy Land PVP, I am going to continue filling out the Verdict ruby tree. Getting 3/3 Holy Avenger should provide an excellent boost to survivability – not only will I get crit less, but when I do get crit, I’ll get 3 Fanaticism stacks which equals burst healing to offset the damage taken.
Life in Asee-Teph has gotten much better since I hit level 26. I still get run over by ?? (high-level) players, but overall my survivability has gone up a lot compared to 25.
If you have any comments / feedback / questions please post ‘em.
This is my first PVP video for Allods Online (AO). I dinged level 25 today and captured footage of League players attempting to gank me 1v1 and a dynamic 1v4.
I’ve earned 2 World Quest rubies in addition to the rubies available when leveling, so ignore the calculator saying this is a level 27 build
I picked up Divine Prayer 1 (DP) instead of Holy Rage. DP is an excellent instant-cast burst heal
I have 2/3 Condemnation, and this reduces the cooldowns for Blind Faith (disorient/snare) and Banished Words (ruby silence ability) to 24 seconds. Both are superb abilities in PVP, and BF is highly valuable in PVE. At level 26 I will take the 3rd Condemnation ruby to reduce their cooldowns to 21 seconds
Overall, I’m really enjoying the playability of the Melee Healer spec. The PVP mechanics in practice have matched or exceeded what I was hoping for when I wrote the Melee Healer Guide.
Here are some comments not mentioned in the video:
Always make sure to pre-cast Heavenly Smite. Having an instant-cast AOE knockdown rocks in PVP (and PVE)
I didn’t call out when I used DP, but I used it in each of the fights, and you can hear and see the spell animation (it looks like the green shimmer like Devoted Plea)
Don’t underestimate the power of the self-healing from 3/3 Brilliant Faith. I talked a lot about PH in the video but when you watch the footage you can see the Brilliant Faith heal procs as well
If you use the Kanian racial bubble and Holy Shield, after Holy Shield wears off you’ll still have the racial bubble up – so you have unbroken damage absorption. You can see that in the fight against the Summoner
My gear in the 1st fight was from Darkwater, which is two zones before Holy Lands (HL). Yes I know that’s pathetic. I skipped the Elf rep gear because I didn’t want to do the repeatable quest 18 times. That’s simply not my idea of fun. My gear sucked until I was able to acquire the green HL rep gear. In the last two fights I had the green HL rep gear. I haven’t been able to run the repeatable rep quest in HL due to the lack of level capping/balancing mechanics
The PVP action in Holy Lands has been fun at times. However, there is no mechanic to prevent or discourage higher level players from ganking lowbies. I have watched a single level high-level player wipe multiple groups of under-30 players with ease. A lot of players I’ve chatted with are very frustrated with getting 1 or 2-shotted and not having a fighting chance. AO will lose players if the game mechanics are not changed, because life in the Holy Lands in the mid 20s can be pretty rough. A simple level cap would suffice, e.g. Asee-Teph PVP is only for players level 30 and under. This design flaw exists in both Aion and Allods Online and I am surprised that game developers haven’t figured out that level capping/balancing mechanics make for a much more enjoyable and competitive PVP experience that will result in higher player retention.
I’m still playing AO because gPotato adjusted the Item Shop prices to reasonable levels and I wanted to experience the PVP system firsthand. I’m still waiting to see what gPotato does about the 1.0.07 patch, which contains a lot of negative changes and is rumored to have caused many Russian players to quit playing Russian AO. Hopefully gPotato can work with the game developer to not implement those changes in gPotato’s AO.
If you have any comments / feedback / questions please post ‘em.
This is my first Allods Online (AO) video. I dinged level 18 and wanted to show how effectively a Melee Healer (MH) can burn down mobs while maintaining high HP through HoTs and heal procs.
In the video my MH generated heals through 2 mechanisms:
Perpetual Healing HoT (95 on a non-crit)
AOE heal ticks (49 on a non-crit) generated by Brilliant Faith whenever the Fanaticism buff procs
Here are my thoughts on the mechanics of the spec:
2h is the way to go. 2h weapons in AO inflict excellent crit damage, e.g. the Verdict crit for 938 on the 2nd gargoyle. As you can see from the footage, there isn’t much point in wielding 1h + shield given how I am able to keep my HP consistently high
Don’t over invest in Devoted Plea. So far I’ve been able to solo heal groups with just the 1st rank of Devoted Plea. Healing groups should be even easier now that I have Brilliant Faith and Perpetual Healing 1. At some point this spec may not be viable for solo healing groups but I haven’t run into that wall yet
When Fanaticism procs you get 1 or 2 stacks of the buff, and each stack generates an AOE heal with Brilliant Faith. It’s important to note that even at max Fanaticism (10 stacks), you can still proc Fanaticism, which in turn generates the AOE heal
As with all healing, the HoT ticks and AOE heal ticks are subject to the Faith and Luck mechanics: i.e. some of the healing can be resisted and they can crit or anti-crit (glancing blow)
The Dodge buff from Divine Instincts is under-rated and the points are not a waste of rubies. I dodged about 5 of the elite mob’s attacks
Update (26 February 2010):
People have been asking about my stats in the video, so here they are:
Luck 68: 22.7% crit, 7.99% glancing
Intelligence 56: 8.96%
Perception 73: 17.4% resist
Faith 78: 13.4%
Wisdom 54
In the video I have the Gibberling (level 16-17) blue rep gear pieces and the level 17 Darkwater blue quest staff (30-62 damage, Luck +10). This is a very different mix of stats compared to what I have been leveling with. Previously I had enough Perception to be well under 10% resist. With the gear in the video I had boosted my crit rate from 5% to over 22%, and it seemed worth the tradeoff of suffering an increased rate of resists to get ~4 times as many crits.
This is a guide for the Melee spec for the Healer class in Allods Online.
Revision History
2010 March 28: because of the issue with Holy Avenger, dropped 3/3 Holy Avenger and 3/3 Bearer of Light to free up 6 rubies to take Divine Foresight. Updated ruby grid images and link to calculator
2010 March 19: added 3rd PVP video and updated the content for Holy Avenger and Condemnation. HA-generated Fanaticism buffs do not proc Brilliant Faith heals
2010 March 12: added links to my narrated PVP videos
2010 March 9: updated the ruby progression numbered chart, fixed some tooltip descriptions, and added section re: PVP
2010 March 3: updated the ruby progression numbered chart to get Banished Words at 23 for Holy Lands PVPVE
2010 February 27: added the ruby progression numbered chart and commented on Perpetual Healing
2010 February 23: added more content to the tips for beginners
2010 February 20: added tips for beginners
2010 February 19: clarified that all our damage is affected by the same set of stats. Updated names of abilities and rubies to match to the in-game tooltips
2010 February 17: updated names of talents and rubies and their descriptions per in-game tooltips and updates to allodsbase.com calculator. Also made 1 change to the filler ruby placement in the Cleansing Flame tree
2010 February 12: posted original version
1. Melee Healer Class Mechanics
In AO, Melee Healers (MH) are viable because of 4 synergistic mechanics:
Their two core melee abilities (Verdict and Holy Rage) have a chance to apply a stacking buff called Fanaticism, and each time the buff stacks it generates an AOE party heal and decreases the cast time of non-instant-cast spells by 0.5 sec
They can deliver excellent melee burst damage with 2h weapons
They have multiple ranged CC abilities (snare, knockdown, mez, and silence) which are great counters against kiters and runners
They have very good survivability – thanks to plate armor, self-heals, and a bubble
The closest analogy to an AO MH is a WAR Warrior Priest (melee-based healing) blended with a WoW Retribution Paladin (plate armor + bubble + burst).
To give you an idea what a MH is capable of, check out this video of a level 40 MH:
Video of 40 Melee Healer (Russian AO) – not Taugrim
It’s important to note that unlike games such as WAR and Aion, AO does not have a consistent auto-face opponent mechanic. So in AO a skilled meleer can circle-strafe an opponent, just as the player in the video did.
Here are the downsides to the MH spec:
The spec is incredibly mana-intensive
It lacks the burst healing and sustained healing of a healing-centric Healer spec (duh!)
It has limited nuke capability. Its damage mechanics require the MH to get up close and personal
The spec I’m going to describe below is a MH with strong DoT/HoT capability. Here is a link to the spec on a spec calculator:
In AO, there are two ways you spec your character: via talents (abilities) and rubies (buffs and procs for talent abilities, new abilities, passive defenses, etc). Here is my endgame talent tree:
Specific abilities:
1/3 Holy Blast: this is a caster DPS spell and you automatically have 1 point in it. No reason to invest more points in it
3/3 Verdict: the first of our two core melee abilities
3/3 Cleansing Flame: ranged (spammable) instant-cast DoT. I’ll go either 2/3 or 3/3. Some MH specs do not max this out
0/3 Spiritual Focus: grants immunity to spell casting interruption and buffs the next spell or heal
0/3 Devoted Plea: this is the bread-and-butter cast-time heal, but most of this spec’s healing will be generated from melee abilities and instant-cast heals. It is worth investing 1 point in this ability early in the game so that you have an on-demand heal as you level up to 40
3/3 Blind Faith: ranged 5 sec snare and disorient, 21 sec cooldown with 3 points and rubies (see next section). Surprisingly useful in PVE and incredible in PVP
1/3 Heavenly Smite: 1 point just to get this ability because it is a ranged AOE knockdown. It has a fixed 4.5 sec cast but with 9 stacks of Fanaticism buffs this becomes instant-cast
3/3 Holy Shield: 12 sec invulnerability bubble on a 3 min cooldown with 3 points
1/3 Calming Prayer: 1 point just to get this mana regen ability
3/3 Perpetual Healing: maxed out (spammable) instant-cast HoT
0/3 Resurrection: it’s not usable in combat. At endgame you can complete a World Mystery to get an AOE rez, at which point you don’t need this ability any more. I did end up putting 1/3 Resurrection to have a rez for grouping
3/3 Holy Rage (HR): the second of our two core melee abilities. What’s nasty about HR is that it creates a stacking buff which increases the ability’s damage by 10% and mana cost by 20%. This is what you see generating huge crits in MH videos. This ability requires a ton of mana to use so it’s best to spend talent points here last
3/3 Divine Prayer: maxed out emergency instant-cast heal. Very mana inefficient but it complements the mobile playstyle
1/3 Purification: removes a debuff
1/3 Holy Rejuvenation: 1 point to get the ability. This is a large burst heal with a fixed 6 sec cast time but remember that Fanaticism buffs reduce the cast time
1/3 Binding Light: this is a mez ability. 1 point just to get the ability, to complement our arsenal. Should be very valuable in small-scale PVP and gapping an opponent
3. Rubies (0/22/16)
As discussed above, rubies are used to obtain buffs and procs for talent abilities, new abilities, passive defenses, etc.
Here is my endgame ruby spec (note I do not put any points in the Holy Blast tree):
Specific Verdict tree rubies:
3/3 Blessed Steel: +30% to physical damage. Our two core melee abilities are physical
2/3 Ray of Light: when health is < 50%, healing received is increased by 20%
1/1 Banished Words:6 sec silence ability, with a 21 sec cooldown with 3/3 Condemnation (see below)
3/3 Power of Faith: reduces cooldown of our two core melee abilities by 20%
2/2 Devout Servant: increases the chance for Verdict and HR to proc a Fanaticism buff by 20%
3/3 Divine Instincts: increases Dodge by 100% with a 2h weapon
3/3 Condemnation: reduces cooldowns for Blind Faith, Binding Light, and Banished Words by 30%. This is one of our best rubies, don’t underestimate it1
3/3 Brilliant Faith: when Fanaticism buff procs, it generates a party heal
As you can see, Power of Faith and Devout Servant synergize to increase the number of party heal procs with Brilliant Faith. That combination of rubies is what makes this build tick.
Specific Cleansing Flame tree rubies:
3/3 Surge of Faith: +45% increase to output of HoT and DoT abilities
3/3 Illuminated Mind: +15% to Wisdom which reduces the target’s armor and increases our mana pool and regen
3/3 Enlightenment: +15% to Intelligence stat, which drives all our damage (both physical and light damage types) and healing
1/3 Ascension: 1 point to get the self-buff that increases our crit chance by 200% and reduces threat by 200%
2/4 Blaze of Faith: filler rubies. Note that Guardian of Faith only works against demons, so I don’t take it
3/4 Unshakeable Faith: +15% to Faith, which drives all our healing
1/1 Divine Foresight: creates an auto-heal on the target when their health drops to 35% or less. This can save the target in situations when damage taken would have dropped the target’s health to 0. Note that the mana is spent on casting the buff not when the heal procs, and each time the cooldown expires you can place the buff on an additional target
Some MH specs invest points in the Holy Smite tree to get the ability Entreaty, which is an excellent instant-cast self-heal on a 30 sec cooldown, instead of Divine Foresight. However, I don’t like like the 4 required rubies to get to Entreaty.
4. Melee Healer Stats
As a caster class, the following stats affect our damage:
Intelligence increases our damage (and healing)
Luck affects our % to crit and % to have a glancing blow (i.e. an anti-crit)
Perception reduces our chance to miss and the target’s chance to dodge/block/parry
Wisdom reduces the target’s armor (mitigation)
Another important stat for Healers is Faith, which affects how much “wound complexity” our heals ignore. There is an excellent thread on the Allods Online forum that describes the mechanics of the these 5 stats.
It’s important to note that regardless what abilities you use (melee or ranged, physical vs spell damage, etc), the stat mechanics are the same. E.g. Intelligence increases our damage for melee abilities and for spells. I think this was a great design choice by the developer as it simplifies the game.
The conventional wisdom among Closed Beta testers is to keep stats balanced, so you don’t want to go overboard on stacking any one stat (e.g. Intelligence).
dchipeev, a veteran poster on the AO forums, recommends the following stats (excluding Luck):
I’m planning on spending my stat points 75% on Wisdom and 25% on Luck. Your mileage may vary!
5. Ability Rotations
I would cast the HoT and DoT abilities before engaging in melee and refresh them as needed. Melee attack spam would be mostly HR and Verdict.
Use of CCs would be dictated by the situation. We can use our snare (Blind Faith) and silence (Banished Words) frequently due to their relatively short cooldowns against casters and kiters. Our AOE knockdown (Heavenly Smite) has no cooldown – it just has a long cast time of 4.5 sec but with enough Fanaticism buffs stacked that won’t matter. Keep in mind that Heavenly Smite can be “pre-casted” without a target so that when you cast it with a target it’s instant-cast. Our mez (Binding Light) is a great oh-crap CC against humanoids.
In tight situations we can use our bubble (Holy Shield) and / or instant-cast self-heal (Divine Prayer).
6. Other Game Mechanic Considerations
As you probably know, AO is a F2P (free-to-play) game with a CS (cash shop) from which players can buy in-game items with real money.
One of the CS items is a consumable called incense, which increases the player’s max HP for 30 minutes. Many players are unhappy that this item exists because the HP buff is regarded as essential for some endgame PVE encounters and makes a huge difference in survivability in PVP.
For PVP, classes that can meaningfully heal themselves, such as MHs, will probably be less impacted by not using incense than classes that can’t heal themselves. In most games healers stack enough HP to survive a reasonable amount of burst, then they focus on other stats. So if you are concerned about incense and don’t plan to quest for it or buy it from the CS, a healing class may be a wise choice for you.
7. Class Tips for Leveling
Stat Points Allocation
I recommend putting 75% into Wisdom and 25% into Luck, because those stats are rare on gear relative to Intelligence, Perception, and Faith.
Talent Progression
I recommend the following talent point progression through level 12, which enables you to kill quickly while still being able to heal in groups:
Verdict 2
Devoted Plea 1 – it’s worth taking this heal for leveling because without it you have no healing whatsoever until the upper teens. Useful all the way to 40 because it’s a spammable heal and generates Fanaticism proc heals
Verdict 3
Cleansing Flame 2
Cleansing Flame 3
After level 12, you have the option of taking Blind Faith, Heavenly Smite, or Holy Shield. I took Holy Shield 1 then Heavenly Smite 1. However BF has surprisingly strong utility in PVE so I would recommend getting BF 2 before obtaining either Holy Shield or Heavenly Smite. BF 2 has a 1 min cooldown but CC’s a mob for 10 or 15 seconds, which is a long time, and you can continue to DPS on that mob without breaking the effect. Definitely get BF3 by level 25 if you can for PVP in Holy Land.
Perpetual Healing is available as early as level 18 and it’s a very good HoT.
Ruby Progression
Here is the order of rubies I recommend taking:
Divine Instincts 1-3: the Dodge bonus is good so this is not a useless talent by any means
Power of Faith 1-3: the mana cost and cooldown reductions do work, even though the cooldown isn’t reflected in the tooltip; see my comment below to Kikiz
Brilliant Faith 1-3
Blessed Steel 1 in the upper-right hand corner
Devout Servant 1
Banished Words
Devout Servant 2
Blessed Steel 2
Condemnation 1-3: these rubies are key for lowering the cooldowns of our CC. You could take these before Blessed Steel 2. Depends whether you want more CC or more damage first
Ray of Hope 1-2
Blessed Steel 3
At level 23, you will have Banished Words for the silence which is key for PVP. I managed to get two World Mystery rubies (I think via clearing Dark Citadel and all but the last boss of Castle Blight) which enabled me to get Condemnation 3 by level 26.
Once you fill out the Verdict tree, it’s up to you whether you pursue Divine Foresight or Ascension first in the Cleansing Flame tree.
Gear and Healing
It’s totally worth getting the blue reputation gear at level 10 and throughout the leveling process. What you can do is quest until you are close to hitting level 10, then do the rep repeatables (e.g. the flour quest on League side) to get to 25k rep. I had to run the flour quest 9 times to get to 25k rep and it took about 20 minutes – boring but well worth it. It’s easy to solo heal the first level 10 instance (e.g. Oreshek on League side) even as a Melee Healer so long as you have DP1 and the level 10 blue rep gear. With the level 10 blue rep gear you gain a massive improvement in your ability to heal, because the gear boosts your Faith into the upper 40s (or higher) which causes your heals to land more effectively.
For leveling 2h is the way to go. I tried alternating 1h and 2h on the same mobs and the difference in kill speed was very noticeable. Once you reach level 18 you can obtain the talent Perpetual Healing which tips the scales even more in favor of 2h as the HoT will keep your HP high.
8. PVP
Instead of writing out a detailed description of PVP, please watch the narrated PVP videos I have posted on this blog. If a picture is word a thousand words, a narrated video is worth a million
RT @SWTOR: Game Update 1.3 is coming to PTS soon! Check out this week's blog for all the details! bit.ly/Ljoo97 - 1 day ago
in case you missed my late night tweet, here's my latest article: The Business Models for MMORPGs Must Evolve: wp.me/pz9T1-SQ RT pls - 2 days ago
@matticus @Accomp @devolore agreed! And I love to dialogue with and read the perspective of people who are passionate about online games - 2 days ago
@Raggok @Krynis that's correct, but the bolster as you said was within a much narrower range - 2 days ago
@Krynis ya understood GW2 didn't copy SWTOR - they just both have bolstering systems that work - 2 days ago
@Krynis leveling brackets are stupid. I had that sense from previous games but SWTOR pretty much nailed it for me - 2 days ago
@Krynis while I don't think #GW2 copied #SWTOR, you could argue that SWTOR's 10-49 PVP is expanded to 1-80 in GW2. It's mad fun - 2 days ago
@Krynis yes, I think AN is addressing needs that even players don't realize they have. Will be fascinating to see the playerbase reactions - 2 days ago
